Early Entry? One and Done? Thank Spencer Haywood for the Privilege

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Spencer Haywood, right, of the SuperSonics driving around Sidney Wicks of the Trail Blazers in 1972. Haywood and the SuperSonics had sued the N.B.A. the year before so Haywood could play.CreditCreditHarold Filan/Associated Press

We know the provision by nondescript names: Early entry. One and done.

I call it the Spencer Haywood rule.

The 29 underclassmen who walked across the stage during the N.B.A. draft last week at Barclays Center and shook hands with Commissioner Adam Silver should have also shaken hands with Haywood and said, “Thank you.”

From Kobe Bryant to LeBron James, every player who has gone from high school to the pros, or who has left college before completing a four-year tour of duty, owes a debt of gratitude to Haywood. At 20, he took on the N.B.A. and forced open the doors for generations of young players, including Ben Simmons and Brandon Ingram, the top two overall picks this year.

Haywood’s 1971 lawsuit, Haywood v. National Basketball Association, invalidated N.B.A. rules that said a player was ineligible for the draft until four years after his high school graduation, or the graduation of his class in the case of a dropout.

Haywood challenged the cozy arrangement between the N.C.A.A. and the N.B.A. that essentially compelled athletes to play four years in college. It was an arrangement that benefited colleges and the N.B.A., but not necessarily the players.

I visited with Haywood over the last few days. He was in Brooklyn for the draft, and the National Basketball Players Association this week screened the powerful new documentary about his life, “Full Court.”

Haywood, 67, said he had never attended the draft before.

“I’m walking through the hallways looking at players,” he said. “Their agents are saying, ‘That’s that old Spencer Haywood guy.’ They say ‘early entry,’ but they really don’t know what they’re talking about.”

Haywood is pushing for the union to make “the Spencer Haywood rule” the official name of the provision that allows underclassmen into the N.B.A. He wants the Haywood rule elevated to the Mount Rushmore of fights against the system.

“It would make a world of difference to all of the players because they’ll know that there’s a person who made that sacrifice,” he said. “They have got to know that somebody did this. You can’t leave it out in space.”

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Ben Simmons after being drafted first over all by the 76ers on June 23. Simmons was one of 29 underclassmen in this year’s N.B.A. draft.CreditMike Stobe/Getty Images

The problem with continuing to refer to this game-changing provision as “early entry” or “one and done” is that those labels fail to assign ownership to the rule and leave questions unanswered: How did it begin? Who pushed for it? Was it always like this? Was it easy to accomplish?

“Early entry” implies easy entry, that the right for young players to enter the league without waiting four years was bequeathed by the N.B.A. out of a sense of benevolence. In fact, the N.B.A. fought Haywood tooth and nail, as if the league’s survival depended on it. Caretakers of the league felt it did.

The N.B.A. argued that the influx of young players would destroy the league, that the siphoning of talent from college basketball teams would destroy college basketball and would ruin the N.B.A.’s pool of talent.

The documentary illustrates the extent to which the N.B.A. used its muscle to keep Haywood off the court, and even out of arenas, as it fought him and the Seattle SuperSonics owner Sam Schulman, who broke ranks in March 1970 when he signed Haywood.

The commissioner of the N.B.A. at the time, Walter Kennedy, invalidated that contract, arguing that Haywood was not eligible because he was not yet four years out of high school. Haywood would have been eligible to play that June.

Haywood, joined by the SuperSonics, sued the N.B.A., claiming that the league’s threatened penalties against him and Schulman for not following the draft rules violated antitrust law.

Haywood had been playing in the rival American Basketball Association for the Denver Rockets, who had drafted Haywood under a hardship exemption after his second year at the University of Detroit.

In 1971, after a blizzard of appeals and injunctions, the Supreme Court ruled by 7 to 2 in Haywood’s favor. Haywood was a Sonic — and in the N.B.A.

The N.B.A. and Schulman settled out of court. Schulman paid a fine and legal costs. But Haywood won.

Haywood’s move for officially changing the name of the rule might be misinterpreted as the egotism of a former player who wants to remain relevant.

In fact, Haywood’s stance is the legitimate argument of a Hall of Fame player whose legacy changed the course of a league and many of its players — for the better.

Haywood’s triumph was a victory for the N.B.A. as well. The league’s argument about the potential harm arising from a flood of young players was laughable.

The Spencer Haywood rule allowed the N.B.A. to expand. The league gained access to an ever deepening pool of supple young bodies. Over the next 15 years, some of the greatest players in history left college early — thanks to Haywood.

A result of the Haywood lawsuit was that the N.B.A. instituted an exception for players who could demonstrate economic hardship if they were made to wait four years after high school. In 1976, the hardship requirement was scrapped in favor of what appeared to be a completely noneconomic standard, which was early entry in exchange for ineligibility to play college basketball.

But the age of the league’s labor pool remains an issue.

The league may push a proposal that would compel players who accept scholarships to play two seasons in college before being eligible for the draft.

When we spoke after Sunday’s screening, Haywood said he was disappointed that none of the players had stayed to watch the film.

“I was really hurt,” he said.

After the screening, the union’s executive director, Michele A. Roberts, perhaps sensing Haywood’s disappointment, assured Haywood that the players did appreciate what he had done, even if none of them stayed to watch the film.

In any event, if I were Haywood, I would not care whether the players watched the movie. I’d rather they showed their gratitude by voting to change the name of the rule under which many of them gained entry into the N.B.A.